PAGE ONE -- FREMONT BOMB LIKELY ALL LINKED / New exploded device found near water tank

Kevin Fagan, Henry K. Lee, Manny Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writers

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, April 1, 1998

1998-04-01 04:00:00 PDT FREMONT -- The bombings that have sent fear rippling through Fremont this week -- including a detonated pipe bomb found at a water tank overlooking million-dollar homes just yesterday -- are probably all linked, police said.

The firebombs left at the houses of the police chief and his predecessor and pipe bombs planted at two houses and a water tank in a hillside neighborhood all had "similarities," investigators said.

However, that determination left police no closer to identifying a suspect -- or even narrowing down whether the bombing rampage was the work of the same person or group.

"All we know at this point is that some components of the firebombs are similar to those of the pipe bombs," said Fremont Police Sergeant Robert Nelson. "There's a good possibility" that all the bombs are linked.

"But it's still very perplexing. We're trying to make sense of this."

No one has been hurt in any of the bombings. Asked whether investigators are looking at anyone in particular as a suspect, Nelson shrugged and said, "Slap down a phone book and start looking. That's how close we are."

Witnesses to the first bombing, which happened Sunday at Police Chief Craig Steckler's home, said that they saw a suspicious-looking "gaunt" man around the time of the bombing at 4:16 a.m. and that he left in a tan Ford Taurus with another man. Steckler and former Police Chief Robert Wasserman, who found a similar firebomb outside his house later that day, also gave investigators a list of people they thought might have some motivation to harm them.

"We're looking into all of that, but it hasn't developed into anything yet," Nelson said.

The most puzzling bombing is the one discovered yesterday, when a water district worker found an exploded pipe bomb next to a half-million-gallon water tank in the hills. The 30-foot-tall tank overlooks an expensive hillside neighborhood, where a house on Corte del Sol was rocked by two pipe bombs Sunday and police detonated a pipe bomb found Monday beneath a partially constructed house on nearby Vista del Sol.

Investigators at first feared the tank bomb might have been intended to send a wall of water onto the homes below. But they determined by afternoon that the device had not been powerful enough to punch a hole in the tank's wall.

The bomb had been exploded sometime before Alameda County Water District employee Laurie Balcerzak found it on a routine inspection at 9 a.m. All that was left were fragments of the bomb, a small blasted hole in the ground and a backpack left nearby, possibly by the bomber, police said.

The fact that the latest bomb, the sixth in Fremont in the last three days, apparently had little chance of puncturing the tank did little to ease residents' anger and fear.

"This much publicity is very bad. The cuckoos are getting ideas," said a woman who was evacuated from the Vista del Sol neighborhood Monday night as federal agents went house to house looking for more bombs. "We even have people driving up here to look. They think it's a party, but it's not."

The 18 families who were evacuated by police Monday lined up in their cars along nearby Hunter Lane yesterday morning, idling their engines in the chilly rain while they waited to be let back in.

No other devices were found, and everyone was back home by midafternoon, but the spectacle of a small army of police and federal agents with bomb-sniffing dogs scouring their homes was unsettling for many residents.

"This is considered to be one of the best cities to live in in the country," said one displaced resident, who like most others was too afraid to give anything other than his first name, John. "One reason we live here is that nothing happens -- and now this."

A woman who said she had been out of her house since Monday afternoon speculated that copycat bombers were at work.

"This is a crazy world. This stuff all just feeds on itself," she said. "One guy does a bombing and gets a story, then someone else does one to get his story. It's sick."

ATF supervisor Charlie Barnett said he was sorry the searches inconvenienced residents, but "we always err on the side of safety."

A source said the explosive found at the steel-plated water tank was a pipe bomb similar to those planted in the houses nearby. "It's a pretty safe bet" that the same person or persons planted all the bombs, Nelson said.

He described the pipe bombs and firebombs as sophisticated and said whoever planted them was an expert.

Tracy Hite, spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in San Francisco, said investigators have "a lot of theories" about the blasts.

"We're trying to figure out whether they're all related, whether some are related and not the others and whether one is a particular target and the others were done to cover up" or distract from certain bombings, Hite said.

Nelson said young pranksters were definitely not responsible.

"I think this situation and the devices are sophisticated enough to eliminate high jinks by teens," Nelson said.

"It's like a cook can make different kinds of dishes," said Ronay, who was an FBI agent for 23 years and served as chief of the agency's explosives unit.

Ronay said investigators go through an "evolutionary process" to determine whether a bomb is related to some predecessor. In such cases, the first and last bomb may not appear similar, but investigators may be able to find similarities to intervening bombs, he said.

In another incident that frayed nerves yesterday, 9,000 students at Ohlone Community College in Fremont were evacuated because of a bomb threat that later proved to be a false alarm.

Campus Police Chief Jim Triplett said a man called the administration building at 8:25 a.m. and told a student employee, "There is a bomb on campus. I suggest you find it," before hanging up.

That prompted police to evacuate the campus and search Ohlone's 23 buildings. Nothing unusual was found, and students were allowed to return about noon.

Police have set up a hot line for anonymous tips in the cases -- (510) 494-4856.